Kevin Costner

Crossing a big ticket item off your bucket list is a momentous occasion. This I know, as I have managed to clear my entire 2015 Ta-Da list and am walking into 2016 with a relatively clean slate. Of the many achievements of the year passé, the biggest, and most personally exciting, is finally getting around to self-publishing my first novel.

Once upon a time, I jumped out of a plane. The most common question afterward was from how high I jumped. When I answer 3,000 feet, there is always that little catch, that little hesitation that says, oh, is that all? To which I always respond, hey, dead’s dead; doesn’t matter how far you fell.

So, then, yeah, I self-published my own book. But the thing is, I never really wanted to publish it at all. That’s not why I wrote it. I’m not looking for fame and glory. It matters not a lick to me one way or the other what happens to it now. (Although, yes, I would be beside myself if Kevin Costner wanted to make it into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Channing Tatum. But I digress…) I was happy to have completed the story. I wrote over 100,000 words, in some kind of a coherent order, and enjoyed every minute of the process.

It was my husband, Paul, who had always pestered me to try to find a publisher for it. Ironic that he had never actually read a word I wrote – that also being funny since so much of it was about him. But he, ever my greatest supporter, wanted me to publish it. I decided that, yes, I did want to see a copy on my shelf along with some of my other favourite books and started editing it. Before it was done, he passed away.

As I prepared to tackle my renovations last summer, I finally thought I should put this task on the grand Ta-Da! list and get ‘er done. Before the office went in. Before my thoughts and dreams would become obsessed with Romantic Shorts. And so I put the whole thing together and published it through Amazon.

As it turns out, it doesn’t matter who actually turns your story into a book; when that pile of neatly trimmed paper lands in your hands, and without thinking, you stick your nose in and breath in that new-book smell, the elation and satisfaction of accomplishment are to die for!! And there it sits on my shelf. Quietly watching me and whispering constantly that it would like a baby sibling.